SECOND CHAPTER WOMAN

A private advisory for women in transition

BY APPLICATION

There is a chapter in a successful man's life when the things that built him stop sustaining him.The business is running. The marriage is technically intact. The body is holding, mostly. The children are grown or nearly so. By every external measure, he is doing well.And yet something has gone quiet inside him that used to be loud.He doesn't quite know who to talk to about it. His wife is too close. His therapist, if he has one, doesn't know the world he lives in. His accountant manages his money. His doctor manages his body. His best mate would change the subject. The men at his level are managing the same silence.This work is for him.

WHO I AM

John Hale

I have spent forty years as a strategist to chief executives, boards, and the kinds of men who build things. I have also spent forty years as a student of what most men only begin to study when the first chapter ends — the inner life, the masculine and feminine, the body, the marriage, the meaning of a life well lived.I founded Hale Consulting Group in 1998 and have advised hundreds of organisations on strategy and leadership. I have written four books. I teach in executive education at Queensland University of Technology and have held adjunct positions at five universities including Melbourne Business School and Singapore Management University.Beneath that public life, I have walked another road. I have trained with Tony Robbins, David Deida, Byron Katie, Paul Lowe, A.H. Almaas and the Diamond Approach, Arjuna Ardagh, Avikal Costantino, and a Daoist master. I have done the ManKind Project's deep men's work and the Enneagram lineages of Don Riso, Russ Hudson, and Sam Demetro. In my forties, I had a series of non-dual realisations that broke my heart open with compassion for myself and for all men who suffer.At sixty-three, I have both the map and the territory.

WHAT I HAVE LIVED

The man I am now was built on the ground of what was lost

My first marriage ended at forty. I had four children, significant financial commitments, and through circumstances beyond my control, I found myself broke and in debt. I had to rebuild from nothing.What saved me was that my children ran to me even though my hands were empty. That taught me what actually holds a life together when everything else falls away.I rebuilt my health, my wealth, my work and my inner life over the years that followed. I do not advise from theory.

THE MEN I WORK WITH

Seeing the whole man

I have sat with men who were ready to take their own lives, and watched them choose to live.I have sat with a man who came to me ready to commit murder, and watched him find peace with what he was carrying.I have sat with a man whose darkness was leaking into every part of his life, and watched him take responsibility for that darkness until it became his strength.I have sat with a man worth nearly a billion dollars who would not listen when I told him his health was six months from collapse. After his triple bypass, after he lost half his wealth, he came back and thanked me — for being the only one who told him the truth.This is the work. Seeing the whole man. Telling him what no one else in his life will tell him. Walking beside him while he does what he already knows he must do.

THE MAN I WANT IN FRONT OF ME

He has succeeded. Something is unfinished.

He is in his forties, fifties or early sixties. He has built something. A business, a portfolio, a career, a name. By the measures the world uses, he has succeeded.Inside that success, something is unfinished.He has mastered money but not love. He has mastered strategy but not his own emotions. He understands his industry but not the difference between the masculine and the feminine that runs through his marriage. He knows how to set a target and hit it. He does not know how to be still.No one ever taught him these things. They are not taught in schools, in MBAs, in boardrooms, or in most marriages. By the time a man realises he was never taught, he is often too senior, too proud, or too private to learn them anywhere ordinary.He is ready for a different kind of conversation.

FROM MEN I HAVE WORKED WITH

"Life happens in chapters. When my first chapter ended through health, career and relationship challenges, John arrived at the perfect time. He gave me back clarity, purpose and focus. He helped me kick off the second chapter of my life.""A real sanctuary for men. Transformational. My relationship with my wife has changed completely. The women in my life applaud him.""A level of clarity and humility that is rare."

THE ENGAGEMENT

Six months. One man at a time.

MONTHLY HALF-DAY
One morning each month, in person, in Brisbane. From eight until noon. A morning long enough for the real conversation to surface.MID-MONTH CALL
Sixty minutes by phone or video, to keep the work alive between sittings.CONTINUING ACCESS
By phone or message between sessions, for the moments that actually matter — a hard conversation with his wife, a decision that is making him sick, a 3am hour when something needs to be said out loud to someone who understands.MONTHLY PRACTICE
A book, a meditation, a conversation to have, a habit to install or break.QUARTERLY REVIEW
At month three and month six, a longer reflection on what has shifted, and a decision together on whether the work continues.

INVESTMENT

$36,000

PAID IN FULL AT COMMENCEMENT
(INC GST)

The payment itself is part of the work. A man who is ready commits.

TO BEGIN

A single conversation

Ninety minutes. $550, credited to the engagement if we proceed.In that conversation I will tell you whether I believe I am the right man for what you are carrying. You will know whether I am.Most men I speak with do not become advisees. The work is not for everyone, and I take very few men each year.

OR WRITE DIRECTLY

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